Interviews using Poetry. All questions by Aaron Kent. Longlisted for Saboteur Awards 2017.

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Category: Jeff Alessandrelli

But you should be making a lot of money Jeff,
you should be rolling in metaphors
and dollar bills.
If I was rich I’d buy your books every day
and feed them to my students.
Watch the regurgitate your pain.

Three questions:

1. Have you ever counted Saturn’s rings?
[The answer to this should be in the form of a fairytale]
2. Do you wear odd socks?
[The answer to this should be in the form of an algebraic equation]
3. Have you ever seen Good Will Hunting?
[The answer to this should be ‘yes, it’s the best film ever made’]

– Aaron Kent

Answer 5

The funny thing about when you die is that nothing happens. Everything keeps responding and CC’ing and driving. Not you but everything. Occurrence is a lush orchard, thick with fruit. A severe tooth ache matters much more than death. Being that it does not exist, no metaphor for death exists. Money is not a type or kind of death.

1. Once upon a time Papa was a rolling stone that kept on going, launched blue cliffside into the solemn wide sea.

I’m homeless in antique shops, no sunlight,
where the clocks tick down to haiuken.
The eyes of the oysters behind the manicured
cabinets lock my jaw shut. I can’t scream
for the Kraken’s arrival, or write a PHD
about Godzilla. (Even legendary sea monsters sell their souls to alcohol companies).
Solstice has us running from the moon –
both moons, one Q times smaller than
the other. How many do you see at night?
It hurts to shed owl feathers under lost words,
and build lego into stairways. Sue moths, Sue moms,
Sue mum. Sew krosses into loaves of bread.
I’m infinite in antique shops – here the tablets
don’t write pikatrapp on canvas.

– Aaron Kent

Answer 3

To a hoarder
love is just
another form
of possession,

a savoring soon
to be thought about
only for possession’s empty,
enormous heart.

Apparently I died some sixty
odd
years ago. At least that’s what
my brother will have me believe.
I picture him awake oh
eight hundred hours. All six and a half
foot of him, desperately rehashing
my life. With his legs crossed
somewhere near his tits, he tries to fight
the sun in name only, humiliate the enemy
verbally. He has Nike pumps,
decades,
is playing for the away team. Hopes
that five dollars and three quarters
is enough to pay his way. I feel like phoning
him, telling him to go ahead
erase my history, kill my humanity,
I watched him walk into the world,
straight into an empty chamber. Blood isn’t thicker
than water, it’s just a different
colour. How do your family see you, Jeff?
Are you left behind by their rapture?
Or do you embark with them? I’ve seen
my brother’s comet streak
and I don’t wish to jump aboard.

– Aaron Kent

Answer 1

I live in an airless room,
a yearbook photo,
a sock puppet
blossoming with holes.
The room’s silence
is predictably suffocating,
full of judgment—
but it’s a pleasant stifling
nonetheless,
one I’ve grown
used to. You can
pick your friends
but not your family
and this lack
I’ve made my own,
all my own.
I don’t want money
like my sister
or fame
like my brother
or glory
like my son—
I just want
to be whole.